Amazon to take 1,100 fake reviewers to court

Online retail giant Amazon are set to take more than 1,100 people to court for writing false online reviews on their website. This news comes not too long after Amazon sued a number of websites in April for selling false reviews.

Amazon claims that they are buying products for as little as £3.25 each so that they are able to write more fake reviews to gain more custom. The writers apparently offered their services of writing 5 star reviews in exchange for money on freelancing website fiverr.com.

According to Amazon, their brand is being damaged by these “false, misleading and inauthentic” reviews.

To avoid being caught out, writers seemingly asked sellers for product information and logged into accounts using a number of different IP addresses. They have even gone as far as receiving empty envelopes or packages to create shipping records on Amazon’s site.

These false reviews were allegedly written by more than 1,114 defendants on their website, though they have yet to identify these ‘John Does’. Despite the efforts that Amazon have gone to in preventing these fake reviews, there is still a big problem with them everyday.

The legal action that was launched in America states that Amazon aims to protect it’s customers ‘by stopping defendants and uprooting the eco-system in which they participate’.

Amazon have stated that they will not launch legal action against the website fiverr.com as they are aiding them in removing the forbidden services.